


Mercy Kill

by Alania



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 18:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6340621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alania/pseuds/Alania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren and Rey meeting on a battlefield never ends well. But at least it ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercy Kill

“We’ve _really_ got to stop meeting like this.”

The ground beneath their feet was scorched, barely done smouldering after the beating the planet had taken from the First Order’s first wave. It hadn’t been an attack; it had been an utter annihilation, turning a green and grassy field into a black pit of ash and smoke to which she’d rushed out to. She could feel him, now. Anytime he came to the battle, his presence was heavy and unwanted in her mind, and it smouldered with a painful heat that reminded her of the very scorched ground her boots were treading on.

She’d slowed when she saw him, black against black, with nothing but his lightsaber illuminating his presence. He’d just stood there, and waited.

Waited for her.

Who was she to disappoint?

Luke’s lightsaber snapped to life in her hands, still in her possession after all this time. The sight of it had his teeth baring, and the wraith finally moved, preparing to strike her down.

They’d done this dance a dozen times by now. Different planets, different battles. He’d always known where she was, and she’d always find him waiting.

They traded blows without hesitance, left new scars with every kiss of a saber, and ended in stalemates of exhaustion that had them both on their knees, refusing to buckle until the very last moment. Nothing was ever decided. Winners were never proclaimed. Victory did not come, and the hunger to find some kind of resolution continued to gnaw in their hearts no matter which of them would flee first.

It was becoming a game; she could tell by the way his presence had her making jokes, even though _her_ presence caused him nothing but frustration. There had to have been a point when he realized she wasn’t taking it as seriously as she should, but she felt safer when she believed that he was still trying to kill her with every single blow, no matter how unlikely that had become.

She refused to believe that he was trying to teach her. She hadn’t given him permission for that. He was not _allowed_.

She refused to acknowledge the way her form improved after every fight. She stubbornly pushed away the thoughts that came unbidden as she laid on a medical cot, of how she could have dodged better if she’d just blocked his leg, if she’d just protected her ribs.

He was _not_ her teacher.

As if sensing her distraction, he slammed the force into her and she toppled back into the ground, feeling the burn of a flame licking at her shorn elbows. She scrambled back up to her feet, but he was already descending on her, prepared to strike what looked like the final blow. 

Her lightsaber was still on the ground. She reached to call for it, but she knew it would be too late.

“Pick it up.” He growled, his voice shaking with impatience. _“PICK IT UP.”_

Her hand hesitated, as she flickered a dubious gaze in his direction. It took a few more seconds before she called the the force and brought the lightsaber to her fingertips, and in all that time, he could have sliced her head off. He _should_ have sliced her head off. She should be dead, twice over.

She did not ignite her saber, and she could see the flare of indignation in his eyes. She could see how that enraged him, and she knew.

She knew it was time to give up this little ruse, and admit that these were not battles, after all.

“I never asked for this.” She whispered, attaching her saber to her belt. His eyes widened, and his lightsaber inched closer, bearing down on her neck.

“You’re foolish to put away your weapon.” He warned her, but his words were etched in a plea that felt much more dangerous than a threat would have. His words seethed out through closed teeth. _“Fight me.”_

“We’re not fighting.”

Kylo Ren backed up a single step, as if the words had the power to slap him. His brow furrowed in disgust, but a moment later his lightsaber was shaking up at her once more. “Does it _matter_? You’ve come. Every time, you’ve come. If you weren’t getting something out of this, you would have told the Resistance of my location and had them blow me out of the sky.”

Was that a _smirk_ lifting the corner of his lips? She itched to bring out her saber and give him another scar across it.

Her eyes drifted away from him, phasing out of focus. It boiled his blood to see her so unguarded in front of him - this was the opposite of his intent. She was supposed to be honed into a weapon, not softened around the edges. Yet he did nothing, because he could feel her thoughts before she ever said a word.

“I made a mistake.” She admitted, and he stopped breathing. “This. This was a mistake. I’m not going to do this anymore with you.”

She felt the heat of the lightsaber kiss her neck, burning the skin with it’s proximity. “Then you were the mistake, Scavenger. One I’ll have to rectify. Right now.”

She waited.

She could hear the distant sound of TIE fighters screeching through the air, coming closer. Her head turned, regardless of how the lightsaber continued to burn, and looked up to search for them in the sky.

_“REY.”_

She could hear the unchecked rage in his voice, but that was not what snapped her expression back to him. It was her name. It was the first time he hadn’t called her scavenger. 

Her lips parted in a subtle jaw drop as she tried to read the expression on his trembling face.

It was an unnecessary gesture. The TIE Fighters were closer than she’d expected, and his eyes flickered with horror up into the air seconds before the sound of gunfire deafened her as it peppered the ground in straight, well placed lines of destruction. The lightsaber was discarded, as Kylo Ren used both of his hands to keep the blasts from tearing through his body. Whoever had ordered that attack was not interested in keeping him alive. They had a very specific goal.

And they achieved it.

He was on one knee, with his hands clenched up in the air to stop the fire from raining down. When the smoke cleared, he was left unharmed, and he dropped his hands. There, in front of him, was a terrifying sight. 

He’d killed so many people, but he’d never seen someone’s body so terrifically mutilated by the multiple wounds of a direct hit by a TIE fighter. Her body was more blood than flesh, but her face was miraculously untouched, save for the splatters of blood that splashed against her features. She was still looking at him, with wide, dilated eyes. Her lips were still parted, in a frozen state of shock.

He could tell the moment she began to fall, and he scrambled towards her until she tumbled into his arms, catching her head safely with a single gloved hand. She was shaking, shivering with agony, and there was no way she would survive this.

But she was strong. So unbelievably strong. And part of that was his fault, he realized, as she clung to life bitterly with a courage and boldness she’d practiced in their sessions. He’d made her just strong enough to hang on too long, to suffer a lengthy, painful death.

In his mouth, the saline, iron taste of blood. It was bitter and warm. He absorbed what he could, but had lost the capacity to halt himself when it had become unbearable. That’s all that was left between them. Blood. Neither bad, nor good. It was just there, and it would not stop.

Her hand snapped out to grab his chest. She held on with shuddering hands, as her eyes stared up at him wildly. Her mouth moved but she couldn’t speak; words were never going to come from that ruined throat again. Instead, he could hear her terror filled thoughts, begging him.

_Please._

_Please. Kill me. Please._

Every second she laid in his arms was hellish torment. He felt the pain intimately, and let out a choked, unexpected sob.

_Please. Kylo, please. Kill me. It hurts so much. Please._

Her eyes were rolling, as the torture took her in convulsions, and her throat bubbled with blood.

There was no time to think, and less still, to act. Prolonging the suffering would do nothing for him later. The sight of her mangled frame pleaded with whatever piteous scrap of humanity that refused to leave him.

His lightsaber soared to his hands, snapping on in a heartbeat. The blade slid easily into her heart, stopping it before the two vent crossguards even had a chance to flicker to life.

The convulsions stopped. Her eyes closed, but he could see that peaceful smile reach her bloodied lips, and heard the last thought that slid out of her, and settled like a ghost into his mind.

_Thank you. Teacher._

His hand dropped the saber, and then both of his hands, shuddering with a new agony, reached up to clutch at his face hard enough to dig his nails into his skin.

He screamed into the leather, until his voice gave in and the last flickers of fire on that scorched ground finally snuffed themselves out. 

The brute and wretched echos of his howling, amid other indications of his hysteria, scored the earth. As the badlands shifted and sighed around him, he released his mind into the same dust that took her broken, tired body. 

Unhinged and bare and alone.

_Look at what we’ve done to each other._

**Author's Note:**

> I had a million ideas of what to write and the first thing I write is this. My life is a lie.
> 
> Thank you to Matt for helping me with some of the Kylo bits, he's the best Kylo writer in the world and you should go check out his works as well, they're way better than mine.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at every-day-is-star-wars-day.tumblr.com or reysabadass.tumblr.com if you want to ask the character questions.


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